Villian(s)  Cult phantom

Actor(s):  Jennifer Rubin, Bruce Abbott, Richard Lynch, Dean Cameron

Brief Description  Bad Dreams is a 1988 American supernatural slasher film co-written and directed by Andrew Fleming and starring Jennifer Rubin, Bruce Abbott, E. G. Daily, Dean Cameron, Harris Yulin, and Richard Lynch. Bad Dreams was released by 20th Century Fox on April 8, 1988, and grossed $9.8 million at the box office on a budget of $4.5 million. However, it was criticized by horror fans and critics alike because of its similarities to A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984), even taking into account that Jennifer Rubin was a supporting actress in A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors (1987).

Plot:
The film begins in 1975 at the compound of a "free love" cult known as Unity Field, led by the charismatic but psychopathic leader Franklin Harris (Richard Lynch). Harris leads his followers into a notorious mass suicide by dousing the members in gasoline and setting their house on fire. A young girl named Cynthia Weston (Jennifer Rubin) backs out at the last second and miraculously survives the conflagration, though she falls into a 13-year-long coma. Cynthia awakens in 1988 into a world she no longer recognizes. Placed in a psychiatric hospital for treatment, she is integrated into an experimental group therapy session for borderline personality disorder led by Dr. Alex Karmen (Bruce Abbott).

Soon, Cynthia is plagued by horrific, vivid flashbacks and nightmares of her childhood in the cult. The horror intensifies when the ghostly, horribly burned apparition of Harris begins stalking Cynthia in her visions, urging her and her therapy peers to commit suicide. Shortly after, the patients in her therapy group begin dying off one by one in gruesome ways framed as suicides. Cynthia is left to figure out whether Harris is genuinely killing people from beyond the grave, or if a more terrestrial, psychological threat is lurking inside the asylum. Renowned critic Roger Ebert heavily criticized the movie, calling it a "foul teenage vomitorium" for its gruesome imagery and cynical messaging.